Page 82 of A Convenient Fiction

“In this heat?”

“It would give us time to talk.”

He covered her restless fingers with his hand. “Is it that important?”

Laura gave him an odd, measuring look. “Yes. I believe it is.”

Laura kept pace with Alex as they made their way along the curving path that led through Talbot’s Wood. It ran parallel to the road and had the benefit of being partially shaded by the branches of the trees. The heat was still oppressive, but less so than it might otherwise have been.

She wondered if he regretted agreeing to walk the distance to the vicarage with her rather than ride. He’d been quiet since they left the cottage.

Not that she could blame him.

Tea with Aunt Charlotte and Teddy had been a tense affair, punctuated by thinly veiled statements of censure, and outright disbelief. Aunt Charlotte clearly didn’t think that Alex would keep his word to marry Laura. While Teddy seemed to be more concerned that he would.

“It’s not worth it,” he’d told her in a private moment. “Not for our sakes.”

“I haven’t agreed to marry him for the sake of the family,” Laura had replied. “Not entirely.”

It was the truth.

She’d said yes to Alex’s proposal because she was fond of him. More than fond, if she was honest with herself. She actually liked him.

There were practical considerations, too, of course. Marrying him would help to smother some of the gossip that now surrounded the Hayes family. It would also ensure that at least fifty percent of the family business was out of Mr. Weatherwax’s control.

It was the latter which weighed most heavily on Laura’s conscience.

“Alex?”

He glanced down at her.

“Do you remember what I told you about my family’s perfume business? About how Teddy is meant to inherit the whole of it upon his majority?”

“Yes,” he said. “What about it?”

She slowed her pace. “There’s something else. Something I didn’t mention before. It hardly seemed relevant at the time. Indeed, until today, it had no bearing upon our relationship at all. But now…I can’t possibly marry you without you knowing.”

A wry smile flickered in his eyes. “A dark secret? You intrigue me.”

“Don’t tease. I’m trying to be forthright about all of this. It’s something that affects you, just as much as it will affect the rest of my family.”

His expression sobered. “Go on.”

She took a steadying breath. “There’s another element to my father’s will. A provision for me, in a roundabout way. It states that, if I marry before the age of five and twenty, I inherit half of the business.”

Alex stopped on the path to look at her.

She came to a halt, forcing herself to meet his gaze. “More to the point, my husband inherits half of the business.”

“Your husband,” he repeated.

“Papa didn’t believe that women should involve themselves in affairs of business. Not in a formal capacity.”

“What are you saying?”

“Only that, if you and I marry before Saturday, half of Hayes’s Perfumes will legally belong to you.”

Alex’s face was impossible to read.